Unanswered Prayers

I'll probably end up editing this post quite a bit because I'm learning so much about this topic and while I'm recording what I learn in my journal, I'm so much faster at typing than writing so I'll type too. Shane and I had something that we REALLY,REALLY wanted to work out. It was a job opportunity that seemed like the PERFECT scenerio for our family. The job only opens up every few years IF someone else transfers. There is usually only one position, but they opened up one more so there were two. The Powerplant manager told Shane that he really wanted to hire someone who was planning to stay in the area for a LONG time. We were excited to commit to that because it was back in my hometown area and I've wanted to be there for my parents as they get older so badly. Everything seemed to come at the perfect time as an answer to our prayers. My parents and grandma were so excited and were dreaming of how much we would enjoy living close. It also seemed like the perfect opportunity to spend more time together as a family. I don't want to even try to list all of the reasons it seemed ideal, but our desires were very righteous. We studied the topic of faith and applied the principles for having our prayers answered...we searched our hearts to see where we needed improvement to further qualify for the Lord's power in our lives and repented where necessary (I had A LOT more to work on than Shane, I'm sure!), we plead our case before the Lord and told Him why we had the desire that we did, we made sacred promises to Him that we would do things to show our committment to our desire every day, we fasted and attended the Temple, our names were put on the prayer roll, we thought positively, and we did all we could to make it happen. Shane had an interview and was told he had the job if he could pass a VERY difficult test. I don't have time to explain it all here, but most people who take this test don't pass it, so we knew we'd need God's help. Shane prayerfully asked the Lord to guide him to the right material to study since they don't give you anything but very general info. about the test. The only book he knew to study had 1000 pages. He spent EVERY week-night (Mon. after FHE and Tues. after his calling) and every Sat. studying for the two and a half weeks he had before the test. We knew that it would take a miracle, but with the Lord's help, anything is possible. The morning of the test we got up at 3:00 am for him to study some more. (I was there for moral support.) Shane spent 5 hours on the test and did his best, but when it came to a certain section, he was TOTALLY unprepared and didn't do well on that part at all. They graded his test and not only told him that he didn't pass, they told him that to be considered for the job again, he'd have to take a class on the area he failed. That would be fair, except we found out from a VERY reliable source who has LOTS of friends and family working for the company, that MOST people who pass the test know someone who has taken it and they've been given all the questions and info. to memorize and study. It's all very politcal and even though we realized that before the test, we thought that we would be blessed. There's a bit more to explain, but it's too complicated to write. Now it seems that Shane is FURTHER away than he was before from the job opportunity. I was very sad last night and to be honest, upset. Not at Shane, but at fact that the "formula" hadn't seemed to work for us. I couldn't see ANY reason for us to not get the job. I couldn't see ONE negative in the whole thing! I wanted to be humble and accept, but I was really struggling with opposition. I felt the Spirit trying to gently work on me, but I'd shove the feelings aside with my angry ones. Finally after I was emotionally spent, I was in a humble state and began to feel comfort. I realized that Heavenly Father will bless us in whatever ways are best. I read the conference talk about Faith and Character by Richard G. Scott. I HIGHLY recommend it! These are a few quotes from the talk that helped....

"We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day. Righteous character is a precious manifestation of what you are becoming. Righteous character is more valuable than any material object you own, any knowledge you have gained through study, or any goals you have attained no matter how well lauded by mankind. In the next life your righteous character will be evaluated to assess how well you used the privilege of mortality.....

Strong moral character results from consistent correct choices in the trials and testing of life. Such choices are made with trust in things that are believed and when acted upon are confirmed.

What are some of the empowering principles upon which faith is based?

• Trust in God and in His willingness to provide help when needed, no matter how challenging the circumstance.

• Obedience to His commandments and a life that demonstrates that He can trust you.

• Sensitivity to the quiet promptings of the Holy Spirit.

• Courageous implementation of that prompting.

• Patience and understanding when God lets you struggle to grow and when answers come a piece at a time over an extended period......

“Faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith” (Ether 12:6). Thus, every time you try your faith—that is, act in worthiness on an impression—you will receive the confirming evidence of the Spirit. As you walk to the boundary of your understanding into the twilight of uncertainty, exercising faith, you will be led to find solutions you would not obtain otherwise. With even your strongest faith, God will not always reward you immediately according to your desires. Rather, God will respond with what in His eternal plan is best for you, when it will yield the greatest advantage. Be thankful that sometimes God lets you struggle for a long time before that answer comes. That causes your faith to increase and your character to grow."



The Spirit quietly reminded me that our ultimate goal is to have eternal life with our family. That matters more than anything. The Lord knows what we need to experience to achieve that goal. I repented of my negative feelings and committed to CHEERFULLY submit to whatever the Lord has in store for us. I know that "who I am" matters more than "where I live". I can decide to be the person I thought that moving would help me be, RIGHT NOW. I also know that there are many things we can do to have a wonderful life together right now. The Lord is aware of our family and will bless us. We have so much to be grateful for! Now I've been humbled and I'm grateful for this opportunity because it woke me up and made me stop coasting and inspired me to make new resoves and committments. I'm keeping those promises that I made to God, even though I didn't get what I wanted AND I'm not going to ask for anything new right away. I have faith that there are beautiful things in store. I would rather become who HE wants me to be than anything else. I know the Lord is aware of EACH of us and if we CHOOSE faith, we'll feel his love for us even when we don't feel our prayers are "answered".

The Parable of the Oxygen Mask

This is taken from a friend who started a blog called Drop Your Burden. She cares for her husband who suffers from mental illness and she knew I'd appreciate what she's learned after what I went through with my brother. I LOVED this post and find these ideas so helpful...

The so-called "parable of the oxygen mask" is probably something you've all heard, but I think it bears repeating:

"As I’ve flown, I’ve noted as we commence to take off from the airport, a flight attendant will arise and among other things will say, 'Now, if we lose air pressure in the cabin, an oxygen mask will descend from overhead. If you’re caring for young children or someone with a disability, make sure you put on your own oxygen mask before you try to help others.' Why would the flight attendant say that? Obviously, if you’re unconscious, you can’t help anyone else. So it is with our service to humankind and our service in the Church and in our professions. If we don’t strengthen ourselves, we will never be in a position to strengthen others." ---Robert F. Orton, “Living a Balanced Life,” Ensign, Feb 2008, 64–68

Take time for you. Fill your own bucket, because you can't help someone else if you have nothing to give. If you are in a situation similar to mine, perhaps feeling frozen and unable to move forward, here's my list. Most of them are really simple and inexpensive (or free). This list was compiled by the input of many friends, and I am including all the ideas, simple as they may be.


•Exercise - run, yoga, pilates, cycling, walking, take a class, swim, etc.
•Run/train for a race.
•Take time to shave your legs & underarms (or face if you're a man)
•Organize a group of friends for a game of basketball, softball, soccer, football, racquetball, etc.
•Spend time in the sauna, steam room, or hot tub at the gym or pool
•Go on a walk with a good friend and talk about anything and everything. The walking will be beneficial to your mood and health as well as the chatter and friendship.
•Get a pedicure or manicure. Do it yourself or trade with a friend if you can't afford a professional service. Simply paint your toenails a fun color if that's all you can do.
•Get a great haircut and/or color. It doesn't have to break the bank.
•Keep a gratitude journal
•Work in your yard or garden or cultivate house plants or herbs.
•Read. Join a Book Club if that inspires you and you enjoy the discussion
•Do something creative that fills your spirit, such as sewing, crochet, pottery, wood working, scuplting, drawing, composing music or poetry, creative writing, blogging, soap making, jewelry making, photography, photo editing, floral design, quilting, knitting, scrapbooking, painting, and many more
•Cut some flowers from your yard or purchase an inexpensive bunch at the grocery store or local market and put them in a pretty vase on the table
•Take a bath instead of a shower
•Take up a new hobby
•Play a musical instrument or sing
•Write in a journal
•Keep a notebook filled with inspiring quotes
•Color in a coloring book
•Draw
•Get a massage or facial. You can check the local beauty school for discounted offers
•Spend time sitting in the park or on a nature walk
•Sit in a hammock or lie on a towel in your backyard or deck
•Read scriptural text, whatever that is for you
•Sing in a choir at your church or community
•Spend time researching your family history and doing genealogy
•Do a puzzle, play a game, play solitaire on the computer, etc.
•Go to the movies or rent a movie, even if it's all by yourself. (Perhaps especially so)
•Listen to some really great music that inspires and uplifts you
•Remove your eye makeup and take time to cleanse your face.
•Splurge on a good moisturizer.
•Splurge on a really great eye cream moisturizer. (This is one that I did.)
•Put lotion on your legs, hands and feet each night before you go to bed
•Sing in the shower, your car, or at home.
•Go fishing
•Spend time in nature
•Take a hike or walk along a nature trail
•Visit a sanctuary, church, mosque, synagogue, temple, or other house of worship
•Place a beautiful, inspiring photograph, quotation, painting or other artwork somewhere you will see it daily.
•Meditate
•Take a different route to or from work or school. Just for you.
•Watch a sunset or sunrise
•Get up in the night and gaze at the moon (works well if you're already up with insomnia)
•Take any medications that have been prescribed for you.
•Take a daily vitamin and calcium supplement (if approved by your doctor)
•Wear sunscreen daily
•Buy a really cute/cool-looking pair of sunglasses
•Buy yourself a fun lip gloss. Just Because.
•Wear lip balm with sunscreen in it.
•Splurge on a fun fragrance for your home
•Wear perfume, cologne, body spray or scented deodorant that you like
•Wear a pretty piece of jewelry
•Drink water. Ideally, try for at least half of your body weight in ounces of water. (For example, if you weigh 150 lbs, you'd drink 75 oz of water per day). Helps with weight loss and appetite control, too.
•Read a magazine
•Sleep in (even if only occasionally)
•Go to bed early. Try hard to get enough sleep.
•Visit the grave of a loved one, all by yourself. Talk to them.
•Pray
•Light some candles and enjoy the light in the evening. (Be careful and use fire safety!)
•Eat well. Don't skip breakfast or other meals. Feed your body nutritious foods and pass on the junk. (Definitely easier said than done!)
•Wash your car
•Keep your desk, dresser, office, home (etc) neat and orderly.

I Want To Live!

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautiful tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenk's lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt form making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my nails from helping weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheek and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived. "
— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

I LOVE this quote and that is what I mean when I say, "I want to live." I want to be all I can be and serve those around me. I want to live the life that will most please my Heavenly Father. I'm so happy to be finished with the "child-bearing" stage of my life. I'm ready to focus on the "child-rearing" now with all my heart and to feel like I'm moving forward.
I mentioned before how pregnancy and the year after affect my body and emotions. I feel like I've been on auto-pilot for a VERY long time (if not on a rollercoaster!). Right after the baby was born, I was doing GREAT, but just couldn't get myself to keep it up with no sleep and Shane gone all the time. I hit rough patches, but I'm feeling more like the "real" me now. I want to do more than just survive and go through the motions. I want to really LIVE! Life is a precious gift. I've known that for quite awhile, but now I'm ready to live what I know. Thank goodness my hormones straighten out! I love the talk about a Consecrated Life from this past conference. When I get time, I'll post more about it. Right now I need to do more than type on this blog. It's just so theraputic to write what is REALLY in my heart and not just be silly. (I will always be silly, I can't help it, but I'm MORE than that too!). Thank you to dear friends who I look up to so much and who have given me hope through your examples and words! (my friends who blog especially!)

The Lord's hand in my life

Even though I like to go back and read my old journals to remember what I learned and experienced, I stayed away from my journal that started in Dec. of 2008. Right at the beginning of that journal is when I learned my brother Ben committed suicide. It's full of my anguish and I poured my heart out in it for days. The whole next year is full of me working through feelings with the help of the Lord. My brother's death is what inspired this blog. I first named the blog In the Arms of the Angels because my brother LOVED that song and it reminded me of the way he struggled and helped me understand him better. It also reminded me of where both brothers are now. I can't judge the choices they made. Only our Heavenly Father knows their hearts and the struggles they faced. Those struggles were very real and Heavenly Father knows how hard they tried. I heard a beautiful talk once that I wish I knew how to find again. It said that when we leave this life the mental problems that people had to deal with through no fault of their own, will be gone. They will be able to be judged without the mental illness. Back to my journal...When I thought of the journal, I first remembered the pain. However, I'm so glad I was prompted to read it now! I can say without a doubt that I was tutored by the Spirit so profoundly during that time. Throughout the whole year, I was comforted and taught. I look at my pain differently now and as awful as it was, I'm grateful for what I learned. The lessons started even before my brother died. To just give a little background, I always felt responsible somehow for my brothers, even though they were 12 and 13 yrs. older than me and were technically not blood related. Their dad married my mom when I was 9 months old and adopted me. I was raised thinking they were my brothers until I was 11. When I found out, I still loved them the same. Because they were raised so differently from me and because I had the Gospel and they didn't, I took it upon myself to worry about them and to feel responsible to help them. One day during a particularly difficult time in my brother's life, I prayed and felt like my heart was breaking. I told Heavenly Father that I couldn't bear the pain of his suffering anymore. The very distinct words came into my mind.."Jennifer, you are not his Savior. I am. I will take care of him. This burden isn't yours to bear." I felt a weight lifted off of me. I did relax a lot more after that and I reminded myself of that often when I started to pick up the burdens I shouldn't. Then about 3 weeks before my brother died, I went up to bear my testimony at my sister-in-laws ward. I had the strongest feeling I should do it and as I walked up there, I thought of my love for the Savior and His love for each of us. The thought very clearly came into my mind that I HAD to know that He took upon Himself our pain, not just our sins, particularly the pain that is caused by other people's choices. I bore testimony of that and felt it so STRONG. That knowledge kept me going after I heard of Ben's actions and as I prepared to talk at his funeral at the request of his 15 yr. old son. I was able to speak of the love I had for my brother, the love he had for all of us, and to share the truth about life after death with family members who don't believe as we do. I know I was upheld by the Spirit at that time. Later on, when I went through a VERY difficult period of guilt, a wonderful mentor very bluntly told that it was like a "slap in the face to the Savior for me to feel like I could have done more". She reminded me that I had turned Ben over to Him and that I needed to trust Him instead of regretting that choice. She was absolutely right. She also talked to me about my neice and nephew who were the children of both of my deceased brothers. I felt responsible for them as well. She bore her testimony to me that the Lord will not give them more than they can handle and that He has a plan for their lives. She let me know that I can be a good example to them and share my love with them, but I can't try to take all of their burdens away either. She talked about them having their agency and my responsibitly to the my own children. Another tender mercy is that my Bishop at the time had the SAME thing happen to him. His brother did the same thing. When I first spoke with him about the guilt I was feeling, I had no idea that he knew how I felt. He shared things with me that really helped. I also had AMAZING Visiting Teachers who let me talk, comforted me, and cried with me. One of the sisters who I visit taught also had experienced the same thing and she came to my door and hugged me and said she knew how I felt. I NEEDED to hear that! My famiy was trying to pretend that his death was something other than what it was even though there was NO WAY it was an accident. I will not share anymore details than that. I felt like I was struggling with all of my feelings alone. Someone once said it shouldn't matter, but unless you've been through it, it's hard to understand. Because I've had TWO brothers die, even though one's death was from carelessness, it's VERY different when it's suicide (I hate that word by the way!) The people who reached out to me, were truly acting as the Savior would. I know I was meant to live where I did when it happened. I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father tutors us with the Spirit and provides amazing examples and friends here on earth. I know that I've healed so much since the time I started this blog and it was all because of Jesus Christ. He truly has born our sorrows and our transgressions and He only asks us to trust Him and follow Him. I'm so grateful for his tender mercies!

I'm back!

I took a LONG time off from this blog, but I want to catch you up on my progress since I started it. I did well on my challenge and had lost 20 pounds and was on my second month of a fitness Bootcamp when I found out I was pregnant with our 5th baby. I had every intention of continuing my progress, but my body wouldn't cooporate! I got very dizzy whenever I tried to exercise, even moderately. I also had horrible morning sickness and all of the healthy food I had been eating before the pregnancy made me sick. I ate saltine crackers and fruit and white bread. All whole grains and things made me very ill! I can't understand it, but I think it has something to do with my hormones because it's ALWAYS that way. I prayed so hard for this pregnacy to be different than the others. I thought that if I could just be strong enough I wouldn't fall apart emotionally and physically, but no matter what I did, it still happened. I'm okay with it now because I kept a journal the whole time and I have a record of how hard I was trying. I can clearly see that it's not "me". My body has struggled to get each child here and I give up the "real" me for quite awhile (until the baby is around a year, which she now is.). I do this willingly and know that I will struggle just to function during that time, but I know that EVERY child that has come into our home was supposed to. It doesn't make it easier when I'm going through it, but it helps the guilt over the productive time in my life I've lost. Before, I spent all my time trying to fight it and beating myself up over it. This time, I finally know that it hasn't been my fault. I also know that I can't do it anymore. The Lord confirmed to me SEVERAL times throughout my entire pregnancy that it was enough. I am so GRATEFUL for all of my children! I'm so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who doesn't expect more from me than I'm able to give. I'm excited to move forward now and work toward becoming the woman He knows I can be. I have a long way to go, but I know that He will help me and I have amazing friends who are the best examples I could ask for!

I know I want to use this blog as a place where I can put my spiritual feelings and goals. My other blog is one for my family and friends (which are many) who don't share my beliefs. I'm not ashamed about my beliefs, but I've learned the hard way that I don't want to share sacred things with those who won't understand. It can make things worse and not better with the family I'm referring to. Thank you for being here and for understanding!